[Review] Cooler Master 690 II “Plus”

Introduction

Cooler Master’s current best seller, the CM 690 was initially launched in 2007 and has been one of their mainstays ever since then. The popularity of this chassis was such that it spawned a number of variants, amongst them a windowed version and later the pure version with an all black interior. The chassis was very simple in design and construction and what made it such a great product was that it was designed keeping a lot of the market requirements in mind.

With changing times and a lot of competition in the same price bracket, it was time for CM to look at a redesign of its current mainstay and that’s exactly what they have done. They worked on the relevant additions required in today’s market place and cam back with the CM 690 II advanced and the CM 690 II pure. The Pure is an Asia Pacific specific model and is a little less customizable than the Advanced, but it still retains most of the practicality and all of the looks of its more expensive sibling. So without wasting anymore time, lets start by taking a look at the features of the CM 690 II pure.

As you can see, the cabinet is a bit bigger than the 690 and also has a slight change over the configuration of drive bays. Overall the extra room is a requirement of most modern mid to high end systems and CM has done the right thing by increasing the space available.

Unboxing and Accessories

The chassis come packaged in a nice glossy white cardboard box. The front of the box has an image of what you can expect inside.

The rear has some more pictures of the chassis with the main features highlighted. This helps uninformed customers to get a good idea of what they are buying.

As usual the chassis is covered in plastic and is saved from any major damage with the help of some styrofoam inserts on each side of the case. The packaging has been the same for quite some time now, and since it seems to work well, there is no reason to change it.

Now lets take a quick look at the accessories that come along with the case, before going on to the case itself. The accessories are packaged in a small brown box, which is securely tied into the chassis itself. The list is quite long and impressive for a cabinet of this price.

Starting from the left, we have a small metal bracket, which can be used to securely lock your chassis. Then we have a speaker and something that I have seen for the first time, a set of plastic fan holders, which by the way are extremely easy to use. There are also a small packet of zip ties for wire management, the 3.5″ bay adapter, various screws and stand offs and a 5.25″ to 3.5″ converter. They have also provided an extra fan filter, which can be used for the PSU if required. The cabinet also comes with an SSD holder, which we will look at later in the review. The motherboard screws are also black to go with the theme and this is a good touch.

The cabinet also comes with a manual, which will help first time builders to get going.

External Impressions

Lets start with the front panel. As you can see below, the front panel remains almost the same as the older 690, but the bottom has a more rounded look. Now, if we really look at it, I will not call this a negative, as the original 690 looks good even today.

Moving along to the left side, the panel looks exactly the same as the older 690, with only a small change in the fan placements. The rest of the panel is pretty bland, and I wish CM had done something here to spice it up. Even a logo like what they have on the HAF series would have helped, or a set of air ducts.

The right side of the case is pretty plain and there’s not much to see here. There is a small fan holder to take away heat from the cpu area and this is something which does help.

Moving along to the rear of the case, there are a few changes to note. Firstly, we have a set of water cooling holes, near the top of the chassis, instead of the right bottom. This will help those who do want to get into water cooling as its placed very conveniently as compared to the original 690. Secondly, the top again is a bit more rounded, to keep with the overall theme of the new case. Thirdly, we have an additional expansion slot on the side, which is very helpful for those who want to use a fan or led controller. And finally, CM seems to have done away with the plastic PCI-E slot holders. But lets leave that for when we look at the interiors.

This is also the first look at the paint job on this chassis and its extremely durable and has a wonderful matte finish, without looking dull.

Moving along to the top of the chassis, we have place here for up to 2 x 140 mm fans. Now what I realized is that the fans can be fit inside the cabinet, OR between the cabinet and the top panel. Now this will be very helpful for anyone looking to get some more space around the CPU socket area, or for a person looking to install a 240 mm rad up top.

The top also holds the I/O panel and we have the regular set of controls, plus a switch for the lights on the front fan. All the buttons have a solid feel to them and work with a nice click. The silver accents continue from the front and its a nice touch.

Lets not take a closer look at the interiors.

Interiors
The side panels are held in place with a pair of thumb screws. Once we take those of, we are greeted by the lovely black interior. I am sure that most of you will love and I am happy that CM decided to paint even the basic model with a black interior. I for one would have saved a couple of days if they had offered the same interior on my CM Sniper.

The manual and accessories box is kept inside the chassis and the box is secured well enough to make sure it does not move while shipping. Once we remove these, we can admire the full beauty of this cabinet.

So lets start with some basic observations about the interiors. The paint work is extremely durable and unless you try real hard, its a bit difficult to scratch. This is a well done machine finish with not a single blemish or bubble on it and CM have done a very good job of it.

Next, we have six HDD caddies, each with its own plastic retention bracket. I wish they had put in some more effort to dampen the HDD sound though. On the plus side, its a very easy to use and straight forward mechanism and much better than the ones on the previous 690.

The 5.25″ bays have a new locking mechanism, which also works quite well. But if you do plan to move your system around, make sure to use the included screws to secure the other side as well.

Moving on, we see six cable management holes in the motherboard tray, as well as a large hole behind the CPU area. This is very well thought out and gives any person the chance to get the most wire free finish with minimal work. there are also a couple of areas where you can use zip ties to hold down those massive cables behind the motherboard tray. The bottom has three ventilation points, one of which will be sued by the PSU. The second one can hold a 120 mm fan and the second and third together can be used for a 240 mm radiator if required. This should work extremely well with the new Swiftech MCR 220, since both the radiator and the pump can be fitted down here and then you only need tubes going to your CPU block. However this version does not have the removable HDD brackets, and so you would have to do a bit off work to get that done.

Looking at the top, this is where the 2 X 140 mm fans can be installed.

The chassis comes with one 120mm fan as part of the package.

Continuing with the fans, we see the rear fan, which again is a plain jane 120 mm with no LED’s and the front blue LED 120 mm fan. In the second picture, we can also see the cable management holes, and I wish CM had left a little more space between the motherboard tray and the rear panel to make it easier to hide the thicker cables.

Finally we take a closer look at the HDD caddy’s.

The one on the left will accommodate a normal 3.5″ HDD and the one on the right would be helpful to those who have invested in an SSD. The positive of this system is how easy it is to work with, but I wish there was a little more rubber to keep HDD vibrations down.

Lets move on to the last part of this review and the conclusion.

Final Installation and Conclusion

I sat down to install a couple of components in this case and was presently surprised. Cable management is a breeze and I probably finished installing the below components in around 25 minutes, with minimal fuss.

Well the surprise here is the motherboard, but leaving that aside for another day and another review, you can probably make out how much those holes help in keeping things tidy. A nice sleeved PSU would probably enhance the overall looks a lot more. Everything went in without a fuss and as you can see we can easily install a 5870 or any of the new GTX series from Nvidia.

The reason for no CPU and ram is that, thats a secret we are keeping for sometime later.

To end this review, lets take a short look at the main pros and cons:

Pros:

Great price – Should be around 5k for this version and 5.5k for the Advanced version

Great build and finish

Well thought out cable management features

Sufficient filters all around

Radiator compatible

LED switch

You can install a total of 10 fans

Cons:

Very similar to the 690 Pure

Rear side panel should have had a bulge to help easier wire management

All in all, a great chassis but I would rather spend the extra Rs. 500 and get the advanced version. I expect the street price to be a bit lower than Rs. 5,000 once the initial hype ends.

The chassis will be available online as well as in shops around the 15th of this month.